


A Species of Reality

by pixie_rings



Series: Shallura Week 2016 [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, But not quite, F/M, Implied Mind Rape, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:18:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7934362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixie_rings/pseuds/pixie_rings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiro's life could seem perfect. He has a secure job he loves, good friends, someone he considers a brother and perhaps even someone he could date... but there's something important missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Species of Reality

**Author's Note:**

> September 1st - Home
> 
> I completely forgot what I wanted to do for this prompt, spent forever agonising over it, and then remembered. Derp.

__

He's been feeling weird since he woke up that morning. Mrs Holt would probably describe it as feeling “out of sorts”. His skin feels odd on his bones, ill-fitting, a restless itch in his veins. Something doesn't feel quite _right_ , and he can't place it.

He heads past familiar buildings, along familiar streets, but everything seems just a bit too crisp, like a movie in extreme high definition. It's like he can see the pores in the skin of the world, and it's unnerving him.

He tries to burn the feeling out of him with his usual workout routine. The exertion doesn't help: the restlessness doesn't drip from him with the sweat like he wanted it to. He's stuck, it seems, with the kind of day that just feels ever-so-slightly _wrong_. As he's sitting on the bench in the locker room, pulling on his jeans, his right hand feels... strange. There's a muscle spasm in his upper arm, and he circles his wrist with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, running his pulse under his own touch.

It's always been there, but it feels... alien.

* * *

It's fall. The leaves are surprisingly beautiful as they die, Shiro thinks. He takes a moment as he walks to class, just watching them, the wind catching some as they descend, others simply fluttering down onto the path, yellow-gold-red. He kicks them, and thinks of the Monty Python animation where they scream as they fall.

For some reason, it doesn't make him laugh.

His class is as full as ever. His eyes easily pick out Keith, and then Lance. He pauses, steps stuttering on the way to his desk. Who the hell is Lance? He doesn't actually know anyone's name except Keith's, and that's only because he's known Keith for ages. He looks, hard, at the young man his mind supplies a name for without him even realising it.

Why does he recognise him?

When Lance catches his eye and looks hopeful, he tears his gaze away, prepares his notes, sets up his PowerPoint.

“Sorry for being a bit late, everyone,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Right, so, we're going to be talking about astrodynamics...”

* * *

When the lesson is over, he hesitates. Keith is waiting in his seat, like every Wednesday, because it's lunchtime and Shiro likes to have lunch with him. It's more of an excuse to keep an eye on him, make sure he's not doing something stupid like thinking of dropping out (again). But all he can think about is how his brain magically knew that young man's name, picked him out of the crowd, focused on him as if he were as important as Keith.

“Do you know anyone called Lance?” he asks as they sit in one of the campus's restaurants (on him, as usual). Keith frowns.

“No?” he says, as if he's wondering why on Earth Shiro is even asking him.

Shiro doesn't think too much of it. Keith doesn't make friends easily, and he's pretty sure he hasn't noticed anyone in the class at all, simply because he doesn't really care. He's a socially awkward thing, this kid he thinks of like a brother. He attempts to push Lance and this morning's weirdness out of his mind.

Hell, Lance probably isn't even his _name_.

* * *

As usual, every Wednesday, Dr Holt comes to chat during office hours, probably to escape his own. He likes to act paternal, but then disappear when his students actually need him. Shiro is one of the few people who managed to collar him back as a student, which means he's earned some sort of eternal respect, which directly leads to Dr Holt on his lumpy, grey, misshapen excuse for a sofa, chatting away merrily.

There's something about Dr Holt's presence that makes Shiro anxious, and he doesn't know why.

“So apparently,” Dr Holt goes on, “she doesn't want to be _Katie_ anymore, she wants to be _Pidge_. And I've got to... wait a second, I wrote it down...” He pulls out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “'Use they-slash-them pronouns'.”

“Then you shouldn't be referring to them with 'she', Sam,” Shiro says reproachfully. Shiro's seen Katie – or Pidge, rather – around campus. Fifteen and already at college studying robotics, they must feel incredibly out of their depth. He wonders if Dr Holt sees Pidge figuring out their gender identity as something of a rebellion, or a sort of cry for attention in a campus swarming with eighteen- to twenty-one-year-olds.

Dr Holt sighs. “I'm putting it down to bad influence,” he says. “She's always hanging around with older students, and _boys_ , no less!”

As if there was anyone their own age on campus for them to hang out with. Dr Holt should be glad they've made any friends at all. Shiro sighs. “ _They_ , Sam.”

Dr Holt scowls. “I think I know my own daughter's gender,” he mutters.

“Evidently you don't, if you keep misgendering them,” Shiro says curtly. For some reason, he feels strangely protective of Pidge right now, defensive. Something comes to mind, a memory he'd ignored from earlier in the day, when he'd seen them out of the corner of his eye on the way to class: mentally, he hadn't called them 'Katie', but 'Pidge', and he hadn't even _known_ about their decision until Dr Holt told him. He can't have exchanged more than a few bits of small talk with them on their own in all the time he's known them.

He turns back to his desk, placing a hand on his forehead. He's so confused. What the fuck is happening to him? He struggles to reel in his straying mind.

“You... you were fine with Matt coming out,” he says.

“That was different,” Dr Holt says uncertainly.

“It really isn't. Just do what they say, Sam. It's not about what _you_ want. Pidge is their own person.”

Dr Holt bids him goodbye after that, but he doesn't sound angry, just confused. Shiro watches him leave, wondering why the image of him going leaves such a bitter taste in his mouth.

* * *

He locks up and leaves to go home not long after Dr Holt leaves. Dusk comes quick in late October, the old-fashioned streetlights coming on earlier, leaving pools of pale yellow light on the paved paths across the lawns. As he walks, he sees three students hanging around a bench. One of them, he notices, is Pidge. The second is his own student, the one his mind so helpfully called _Lance_. The third is Hunk.

_Hunk?_

He's pretty sure he's never seen the tall, broad young man in his life, or at least never noticed him before. His mind wants to rear back, but he reins it in, taking a deep breath and letting it out again, steam on the chilly evening air.

“Hey, Shiro!” Pidge says, waving as he passes. Shiro nods with a smile, and he finds himself stopping before he even realises what his feet are doing.

“Hey,” he says. “Everything ok, Pidge?” Why is he even _asking?_ Why is he using that name, they haven't even come out to him yet? Pidge winces.

“I take it Dad told you, huh?” they mumble. _No, I already knew._ Shiro shrugs helplessly.

“Yeah. He was... kind of complaining about it. I'm sorry.”

Pidge shakes their head. “No. No, that's... that's ok...”

Shiro finds his hand on their shoulder before he can stop it, some overwhelming sense of brotherly affection pushing him past boundaries he has no business crossing.

“You have my full support, just so you know,” he says. Pidge stops eyeing his hand and breaks into a sincere grin. They look so much like Matt with their hair cut like that, and Shiro has no idea why it makes his heart hurt, why it makes him feel guilty.

“Thanks, Shiro, that actually means a lot.” They chuckle mirthlessly. “That brings the people who don't care up to a total of _three_ ,” they say. “Woo-hoo.”

“Hey, we've always got your back!” Lance ( _he might not even be called Lance_ ) says, giving them a thumbs up.

“Nerd,” Pidge says, elbowing him.

Shiro straightens, and now he actually _looks_ at Lance, he feels like he knows him. It's strange, and he doesn't like the feeling at all, but he reads that expressive face and sees something familiar.

“Um... pardon me asking, but is your name Lance?” he asks. Lance's eyes widen and he sits bolt upright, hands clenched on his knees, blushing faintly.

“Y-yes, Professor Shirogane!” he says. “Lance McClain Sanchez!”

Shiro has to stop himself from stumbling backwards. He manages to hoist on a smile, nodding.

“Keep up the good work,” he says, even though he has no idea what Lance's work is actually like. He probably should find that out. Lance nods vehemently, looking like Christmas has come early.

“I will, sir! I'll beat Keith for sure!” He clamps a hand over his mouth and looks distinctly embarrassed at that, and Shiro has to bite his lips to stop from laughing. Keith might not know who _Lance_ is, but Lance certainly knows who _Keith_ is.

“And this is Hunk!” Lance says, obviously in desperate search for a change of subject. “He's gonna be the best aeronautical engineer on the planet!”

“He already is!” Pidge says proudly, punching him in the arm. “He just needs to actually get his degree, so it's official!”

“Guys, stop...” Hunk says, but his smile says a thousand times over how much the compliments make him feel good. Hunk is like Lance: Shiro can see something familiar behind the stranger's mask, someone who gives good hugs and good advice.

Shiro feels short of breath. Having these weird thoughts confirmed in such quick succession is making him dizzy.

“Well, excellent,” he says. “Have... have a good evening!”

He quickly turns and walks away, heels of his hands pressed into his temples, staring at his shoes as they meet the pavement. Something is wrong, something has been wrong all day with these stupid almost-premonitions. He doesn't know what the fuck it is, but he wants it to stop.

There's a sudden gust of wind that snatches at his scarf and he turns, eyes wide. He could have sworn he heard his name, and seen a flicker of white hair billowing.

* * *

He's almost home when he remembers Mrs Holt invited him to dinner that night, so he has to turn around and head to the opposite part of town. He picks up dessert on the way, as an apology for being late, but Mrs Holt doesn't seem to mind, she still greets him with a fond embrace.

Pidge gives him a bright smile when he walks in, actually looking up from their phone, and Shiro winks at them, which makes them laugh and roll their eyes. Matt also smiles at him, that lopsided, nervous smile he always wears when Shiro's around. Shiro suddenly feels racked with incredible, all-encompassing guilt. It's hard to beat down, to keep under control, to not beg for forgiveness, but if he seems strange, Matt doesn't acknowledge it.

Between green beans, sauté potatoes and lamb chops with fennel seed, the conversation veers, as it usually does at a table composed of an astronaut, an astrophysicist, an ex-astronomer, an aeronautics lecturer and a robotics student with an alien fixation, to space. Matt's eagerly talking about his latest research project, his face lit up, his hands animated... it's damn cute. Why Shiro hasn't asked him out yet is a mystery, even to himself, especially since Dr Holt keeps practically begging him to, because Matt won't shut up about him. Matt's cute, but it just wouldn't seem... _right_ , and he doesn't even know why that is. Whatever is stopping him has no logical explanation, but it feels like it would be cheating on someone that doesn't even exist. He hasn't dated anyone for weeks and weeks.

“...So, basically, wormholes?” Pidge says, raising their eyebrows. Unlike Dr Holt and Shiro, they're decidedly unimpressed. Matt scowls.

“Wormholes could be a thing!”

“You've been watching too much Stargate,” Pidge says derisively.

“Wormholes exist,” Shiro says, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he even comprehends them. Everyone stares.

It's as if Shiro's living someone else's life for a moment. He's in two places at once, the Holts' dining room and the vast expanse of space. He can see it, clear as day, bright and scalding as the sun: a hole in the very fabric of reality, bordered in black, made of shimmering hues of purple he has no name for. He can feel its pull, a tug around his navel, pins and needles in his fingers and toes, his nose and ears cold.

“They're useful, for transportation,” he murmurs, like someone else is using his mouth to speak. “They can get you anywhere, from one end of the universe to the other.”

“Wow... you're really certain about that, huh?” Matt says, chuckling, and suddenly Shiro is sucked back into the present. His head throbs, and he has to clutch at it with a pained groan, which makes everyone else worried.

“Takashi, are you all right?” Dr Holt asks, getting up out of his chair and placing a hand on his shoulder.

Shiro flinches away, which makes Dr Holt jerk back as if scalded.

“Yeah... Yeah, I'm ok, Sam, just...” He stands up, trying not to wobble. “I just need to go to the bathroom a sec.”

He needs room to _breathe_. His skin is clammy, his heart beating too quickly.

Once in the bathroom, he stumbles over to the sink, clutches it with white-knuckled hands, stares down the plughole as if it can answer all of his questions. It takes a moment for the room to stop spinning, but when it does he runs the tap and splashes water on his face, hoping that it might seep through his skin and clear the haze of his thoughts.

He straightens, eyes closed, trying to master his lungs and their need to gulp in more air than necessary.

When he opens them, he doesn't see his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. No, he sees a woman: she's beautiful, with dark brown skin and eyes like opals, hair a halo of moonlight. She looks stricken, she mouths his name, but then she's gone.

He staggers away, back colliding with the towel rail on the wall behind him. He's staring into his own eyes, but he can't seem himself. It's like the split-second vision of the woman is burnt onto his retinas, she's all he can see, so _vivid_ for something that took barely a heartbeat to happen in.

When he finally returns to the dining room, the Holts all look worried about him.

“Are you sure you're all right, my boy?” asks Dr Holt. “You're as white as a sheet.”

Shiro nods, not quite strong enough to fake a smile. “Yeah, I... just haven't really been feeling well all day. I'll go home, sleep it off.”

None of the Holts look truly appeased by his words, but none of them have a counterargument either. He grabs his coat, thanks Mrs Holt for the meal and makes his way home.

As he sits in his car, hands on the wheel, he starts shaking. Why does it feel somehow _wrong_? Why do the town's lights want to turn into stars? Why does he feel he's missing something in the back of his mind, like a familiar presence, warm and comforting, protective?

He gets home, and his place is empty, as always. He locks the door, but after that he simply peels his clothes off and falls into bed, exhausted and somehow afraid.

As he's drifting off, he hears it. It's barely a whisper, barely a breath, but it's there, it's next to him, in ear and in his mind.

_Shiro_...

His eyes burst open. The ceiling is lit by the streetlight outside. Unconsciously, he reaches to the side, and there's no one there. Why had he thought someone would be there? He stares at his hand, his own, flesh-and-blood hand, and then at the empty bed beside him. Why does it feel like someone is missing, like something's taken scissors to reality and cut out half of his soul?

He rolls over, stares at the smooth-sheeted void. He caresses the untouched pillow, as if trying to touch the very thing that's been plaguing him this whole day, but there's nothing there. Not even a long white hair.

He sits up. Why the hell did he think about that? Was it because of the woman in the mirror? Was she simply haunting his thoughts? He has so many questions and none of them have answers. He rubs his face and feels shattered by exhaustion.

“I need to sleep,” he says to the room. “Let me sleep.”

There is no response but silence.

* * *

When he wakes up, he still feels tired. He struggles to get going, despite being the kind of morning person that the rest of humanity hates. He rolls out of bed and makes his way to the bathroom, but despite the steps needed to get there being only three, he stops halfway.

He's staring at his reflection, and although it's him staring back, it's also very much _not_ him.

He's paler, like something has sucked the sun from his skin. He has a scar across his nose, thick, vicious and so clean it must have been made by someone intentionally. His bangs are shockingly white, like a sheet, like snow. And his eyes... dear God, his eyes have seen dark things no one ever should.

He falls back on the bed with a yell, but it's just him: plain old him, with morning stubble, black hair and wide, terrified eyes. It takes a while for the trembling to stop.

He doesn't trust himself driving to the university, so he takes the bus. He takes a book, but he doesn't read it, he just stares out the window, wondering how his certainties have turned upside down so quickly. It's like something is trying to drag him into another world, fighting with all its might to get him there, claws sunk into him.

He walks to class, but he can barely focus. He realises he brought the wrong notes, he doesn't have his presentation, he forgot to shave, everything is an absolute mess. He leans on the table, massaging his forehead.

“Are you ok, professor?” someone asks.

“I think... we'll have to pick this up another day,” he says through gritted teeth. “Sorry guys. You can all go.”

Once the students, puzzled, have filed out, he realises Matt is at the door.

“Man, you _really_ don't look ok,” he says. “Did you even sleep?”

“Barely,” Shiro admits. “I...” He turns to look at Matt. Matt is sitting on one of the pull down seats used for disabled students, right at the front, and he looks sincerely concerned. Shiro swallows. Matt's his friend, they've been friends for two years, he can talk about this...

Memories flash behind his eyes, _the scent of old blood and Matt looking at him with sheer terror in his eyes_ , and he falls back against the interactive board, gasping for air.

“Shiro!”

Matt's beside him, propping him up – or at least, attempting to, considering how much bigger Shiro is compared to him – and he looks almost as terrified as Shiro does. Shiro raises his head, and there's the woman from the mirror. She looks desperate, holds out a slim-fingered hand. Her voice is so familiar when it says his name. Even though he doesn't know who she is, his heart is filled with the need to reach out to her, take that hand, comfort her, hold her close...

He slumps against the scratchy carpet, the world black.

* * *

When he wakes up, it's an unfamiliar ceiling. It's bright, there's beeping machinery and memories that aren't even his come back to the surface – _strapped down, wicked grins, blades, sharp things, screaming_ – and he gasps.

Keith's face appears in his vision, worry etched in every line his youthful face shouldn't have. Next appears Matt.

“You're awake!” Matt says, sounding relieved.

Shiro feels like he isn't.

“Yeah,” he says instead. “You called an ambulance?”

Matt shrugs helplessly. “Yeah, I kind of... panicked. I called Keith next!” he adds, gesturing vaguely to Keith with an sheepish grin. Shiro looks at him. There aren't any lines, just a slight frown.

Shiro sits up, rubbing his eyes. “How long was I out?” he asks.

“Two and a half hours,” Keith says. He holds his arms, looks suspicious in the way only Keith can. “What the hell is going on? Matt said you freaked out at dinner last night.”

Matt looks away, clearly feeling guilty. Shiro sighs.

“I don't know what's going on,” he says. “I guess I'm just not well.”

“They did tests,” Matt said. “The one's they've already gotten results back from said you were fine. Are you... ok? You know... _mentally_? There's nothing wrong with it, you know that.”

Shiro looks at the bedspread. It's white, like her hair. It _is_ all mental, isn't it? Everything is in his head, he must have some sort of paranoid schizophrenia or _something_ because these are clearly hallucinations.

He doesn't say that, though.

“I'll just... take some time off. This should resolve itself.”

* * *

They discharge him when the rest of the tests come back negative. Keith makes him promise to call when he gets home before he drives off on his hoverbike, which leaves Matt to drive him back. He should call the university and get the paperwork rolling for his leave of absence. He should call Keith, but instead he sends a lazy text. He pulls the curtains shut and flops back down on the bed, still unmade, wearing just his t-shirt and his boxers. His head is throbbing, but it doesn't exactly hurt. His right arm feels like a lump of meat attached to him. He could deal with a migraine or pins and needles, but these sensations make no sense to him.

He lays there, shutting the world out. He attempts to delve for these phantom memories, but they're like smoke, impossible to catch when he wants to.

He starts when he feels a hand on his chest, right over his heart. There's no weight to it, no warmth, no tangibility, but he knows it's there. He looks up, and there's that woman, hauntingly exquisite, and his heart bursts with something so powerful he feels like he might break. She gives him such a sorrowful look, no tears, just infinite sadness.

_Come back to me,_ she says. _Come back to me, my love. You can't stay here._

“Who are you?” he asks on barely a breath, intrigued and humbled and so desperate to run his fingers through her moonbeam hair.

_Shiro..._ she murmurs, but he blinks and she's gone.

His hand hovers, trembling as it's torn from the liminal space where she sat. He knows her, but _how_ does he know her? How can he possibly know a woman so ethereally lovely? A woman with _pointed ears_?

He _must_ be hallucinating. This is insane. He should call a psychiatrist.

He doesn't, though. He curls up on himself, feeling like he's lost something precious with her absence, and falls asleep.

* * *

His dreams _burn_. They are torture, swerving madly from one extreme to the next.

_\- Blood, the braying of a crowd, the weight of another senseless death -_

_\- Lance cracking a joke, laughter, a feeling of pride -_

_\- Searing agony, cruel mirth, sharp teeth in a shadow beneath a hood -_

_\- Control sticks beneath his fingers, a purr in his mind, synchronicity -_

_\- Cloud-like hair, a dazzling smile, warm skin under his fingertips -_

_\- A dark hall, something not right, hooks in his very existence -_

He wakes up screaming, bathed in sweat, panting like he's run a marathon. His brain hurts like it's torn itself apart and is reforming itself.

“Stop!” he grits out. “Dear God, just _stop_!”

It doesn't stop. He rolls off the bed and crawls to the bathroom, but the toilet is too far and he ends up vomiting in the shower. He's shaking, violently, and though he's never considered the existence of his soul before, it's like it's being torn from him, forcibly ripped from the flesh it belongs to.

“Stop... stop...”

Tears stream down his face, he tries to cling to whatever it is that's being taken. He feels fingers in his hair, the scent of something flowery beneath the scent of blood and vomit and damp stone. He hears his name one last time, and everything goes black again.

* * *

Shiro wakes up shuddering. He gasps for breath like a man that's breached the surface of the sea, arching. He blinks violently, his surroundings swimming into view slowly. There's a green-lit vaulted ceiling, the floor is damp, his head is on a pair of legs.

There are Keith and Pidge, and Lance from his class and the engineering student Hunk. They all look relieved he's awake. He looks up, and there's the woman from his visions, tears pricking the corners of her starlit eyes. He reaches a shaky hand up, touches her face.

“Allura...”

She kisses the palm of his hand. “You came back to us,” she says, her voice small, but so happy it makes him want to cry.

“Let's get him out of here,” Hunk says wisely. “We can have tearful reunions once we're back on the ship.”

She's the one that carries him, past the broken corpse of something he only vaguely remembers, and out into the green-tinted light of the planet's surface. Lance chuckles.

“Man, you have _all_ the luck,” he says. Keith elbows him in the ribs, they fall to familiar bickering, and for some reason he's relieved to hear it.

* * *

Shiro's body feels normal again. He never thought he'd think that about involuntary weaponised prostheses, but its weight has become so familiar he thinks that anything else is unnatural. When he looks in the mirror, he sees the sun-starved survivor with the shock of white hair and the premature lines. His chest carries scars, his mind carries too much.

As much as the other world was good, it was too good. Thoughts of it leave a bitter taste in his mouth. His current reality is one of war and death, but it has something the other world didn't.

He knows perfectly well what that something is, and it's lying right beside him, an arm across his chest, head pillowed on his shoulder, slowly dragging a leg up his.

He could have had stability, and peace, and a class full of eager students. He could have had a world where Pidge's family wasn't torn asunder, where he never had to endure what he had, where his body was whole again, but... what point was there? What reason was there to exist when it was lacking something so perfect and fundamental, part of what made him _actually_ whole? What was the point of a world without Allura?

Allura looks at him. “What are you thinking?” she asks.

“That it's good to be home,” he replies, kissing her on the forehead.


End file.
